All posts tagged energy

If we’re going to effectively deal with climate change while maintaining economic prosperity, then it’s absolutely essential to rapidly transition fossil fuel based energy to non-carbon emitting energy. And some of the best options for doing so presently involve leveraging economies of scale with three widely available technologies — wind, solar, and low cost storage and EV batteries.

(According to the American Wind Energy Association, Oklahoma presently ranks as third in the U.S. for wind electrical generation capacity at 6,645 megawatts. Adding another 2,000 megawatts would considerably increase Oklahoma’s wind energy share by 30 percent. As a result, present Oklahoma wind generation of 25 percent of the state’s electrical supply would likely rise to 32.5 percent as a result of this single large project.)

“GE is delighted to be a part of the groundbreaking Wind Catcher project with Invenergy and American Electric Power. We look forward to putting our teams to work in these communities as we continue to move toward our goal of ensuring that no one has to choose between sustainable, reliable and affordable energy.”

The project which will cost 4.5 billion dollars hits a pretty amazing price of around 2.25 cents per kilowatt hour installed. And with new wind energy projects costing as little as 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour on average in 2017, it appears that raw economic factors alone are likely to continue driving large and lucrative wind projects like the one now being pursued in Oklahoma. A single project that will increase Oklahoma’s wind energy generation capacity by 30 percent to 8,645 GW and push wind’s total share of state electrical generation to around 32.5 percent (see image and caption above).

France and UK Pledge to Ban Fossil Fuel Vehicles

Even as wind gains a larger share of energy production capacity in a red state, the UK and France have now joined a growing number of cities and nations in providing a responsible pledge to ban petrol and diesel based vehicles by 2040. These national moves match a recent initiative by Norway — which aims to sell only electrical vehicles in country by 2025. Meanwhile, India has also recently set a goal to sell only electrical vehicles in its own markets by 2030. Cities such as Madrid, Munich and Stuttgart are also considering diesel bans.

Concerns about worsening air quality, recent cheating by automakers on emissions standards, worries about climate change and a major threat to traditional automaker market share by all-electric manufacturers like Tesla appear to have reached a kind of critical mass.

Britain’s decision is, however, the latest indication of how swiftly governments and the public in Europe have turned against diesel and internal combustion engines in general. Automakers, though reluctant to abandon technologies that have served them well for more than a century, are increasingly resigned to the demise of engines that run on fossil fuels. They are investing heavily in battery-powered cars as they realize their traditional business is threatened by Tesla or emerging Chinese companies, which have a lead in electric car technology. The shift away from internal combustion engines is in large part a result of growing awareness of the health hazards of diesel.

According to reports from the BBC, France’s own July 6 decision to ban petrol and diesel vehicle sales by 2040 was spurred by the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. France has long aimed to reduce its carbon emissions and the 2040 vehicle ban is part of a larger plan for the country to become carbon neutral by 2050.

Given so much money going into the hands of what are already the wealthiest corporations in existence, one would expect that the practice of providing these economic powerhouses with such a massive largess of public generosity would result in some kind of amazing overall benefit.

Energy itself is certainly a benefit. It allows for the rapid and easy transportation of groups and individuals. It lights up homes, powers machinery, keeps us warm in the winter and cool in the increasingly hot summers. But despite what the industry would like you to believe, fossil fuels themselves only represent a small fraction of the global energy available to human civilizations. And the kinds of energy fossil fuels provide is often in its lowest efficiency and most highly externally destructive forms.

What these deleterious industries instead provide is the dirtiest sources of energy in the world. Harmful energy whose particulate pollution alone results in the death of 7 million people each year. More deaths than warfare, more than natural calamities such as earthquakes, and more than even those two combined. That doesn’t even begin to add water pollution from practices like coal burning and fracking. Nor does it add in the ramping up of a global mass extinction event due to the pumping out of hothouse gasses at the rate of 13 billion tons of carbon every single year. A rate that is likely faster than during even the worst previous periods of hothouse extinction in all of Earth’s long geological past. Probably faster than during the Permian, and certainly faster than the last heat spurred mass die off — the PETM of 55 million years ago. A harmful emission that threatens to, by mid Century, wreck much of global civilization and ruin the prospects of all of the children of humankind, not to mention that of millions of species living on this planet.

(Arctic glacier melts under the heat of human-forced climate change as Ludovico Einaudi plays a haunting requiem. Fossil fuel burning has led us to this pass, and things are now about to get much worse. But, for some inexplicably immoral reason, we continue to pump billions of dollars every year into the very industries that are causing the trouble in the first place.)

As such, the fossil fuel industry produces the exact opposite of a public good and its very continued operation is a dire existential threat. One that grows worse each and every time any of us light up a fossil fuel fire. Back during the 1930s, at a time when the US was recovering from another destructive period of corporate excess, it was thought that a corporation should not exist unless it produced some form of benefit to civilization. So the question must be asked — why do the destructive fossil fuel industries continue to receive so much support from the political bodies of the world when the use of these fuels results in so much harm inflicted upon the very publics they are supposed to serve?

It’s not as if there aren’t any viable alternatives.

Tesla Plans to Merge With Solar City

One example of a corporation that could produce an amazing public benefit by speeding the transition away from harmful fossil fuels is Tesla. Since its inception, this auto company has dedicated itself to producing only electrical vehicles. And it was the first Western company to do this successfully on a large scale despite a massive opposition coming from the fossil fuel special interest political and economic bodies themselves.

The reason for such opposition is due to the fact that the electric vehicle represents the potential to radically transform the way people across the world use energy. The electric motors and batteries that drive electric vehicles are themselves 2-3 times more efficient than fossil fuel based internal combustion engines. So even if the global EV fleet were powered by fossil fuels, it would result in less overall fossil fuel demand.

But an EV can be charged by anything, including wind turbines and solar panels. And this mating of battery powered vehicle with these two sources provides an amazing opportunity for individuals to dramatically reduce fossil fuel use yet again. Finally, the batteries produced in electrical vehicle manufacturing can be used, after and during their use in cars, as a device to store renewable energy produced in homes, commercial buildings or cities.

The average home in the US uses about 10 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity on any given day. The Tesla Model 3 will come with a 60 kwh battery pack. Fully charged, this battery could power a home for nearly a week. But just sitting in the garage or driveway, the vehicle could take in energy from rooftop solar panels during the afternoon and evening hours, and with the simple application of some smart electronics and software, provide that energy back to a home during the night.

It’s an integrated system that largely can remove a person’s dependence on oil, gas, and coal for energy all in one shot. One that can reduce individual carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent. And one that can result in greater systemic carbon emissions reductions if it becomes integrated into the full chain of manufacturing and transportation. And even more alluring is the fact that the more batteries are produced, the more solar panels that are sent down manufacturing lines, the lower the prices and the greater the public access to these energy transforming technologies. In such cases, it becomes more and more likely that an EV + solar combo will be supplemented by an inexpensive home battery capable of smoothing out times when the vehicle is not longer parked.

(The Solar City + Tesla merger has the potential to provide a number of integrated renewable energy solutions there were not previously available. EV charging stations mated with solar power generation is just one of many potential innovations that are likely to provide the opportunity to transition away from fossil fuel use. Image source: Clean Technica.)

The announcement came as CEO Elon Musk spoke of Tesla’s plans to fully solarize its network of charging stations. An innovation that would essentially begin to replace gas stations with solar and battery stations — and a huge step away from fossil fuels in itself. But the real transformative potential of the first fully vertically integrated renewable energy company in the form of Tesla + Solar City would be in its ability to provide single family homes with the potential to operate on renewable energy in a manner that is completely independent of any outside fossil fuel based source. And that, unlike oil, gas, and coal, is a public benefit that is entirely worthy of a government subsidy.

(Sunlight in the Desert. Dubai solar park produces electricity at 5.98 cents per kilowatt hour, displacing a portion of the UAE’s natural gas generation. By 2025, solar systems that are less expensive than even this cutting-edge power plant will become common. By 2050, large scale solar, according to Agora, will cost less than 2 cents US per kilowatt in sun-blessed areas. Image source: International Construction News.)

* * * *

Anyone tracking energy markets knows there’s a disruptive and transformational shift in the wind (or should we say sun?). For as of this year, solar has become cost-competitive with many energy sources — often beating natural gas on combined levelized costs and even edging out coal in a growing number of markets.

Perhaps the watershed event for the global energy paradigm was the construction of a solar plant in Dubai, UAE that priced electricity for sale at 5.98 cents (U.S.) per kilowatt-hour. Even in the US, where grid electricity regularly goes for 9-12 cents per kilowatt-hour, this price would have been a steal.

But the construction of this plant in a region that has traditionally relied on, what used to be, less expensive diesel and natural gas generation sources could well be a sign of things to come. For though solar can compete head-to-head with oil and gas generation in the Middle East now, its ability to threaten traditional, dirty and dangerous energy sources appears to be just starting to ramp up.

Solar’s Rapid Fall to Least Expensive Energy Source

A new report from Berlin-based Agora Energiewende finds that by 2025 solar PV prices will fall by another 1/3, cementing it as the least expensive energy source on the planet. Further, the report found that prices for solar energy fall by fully 2/3 through 2050:

(Solar is at price parity in the European Market now and set to fall by another 1/3 through 2025 according to a report by Berlin-Based Agora Energiewende.)

In Europe, solar energy already costs less than traditional electricity at 8 cents (Euro average) per kilowatt hour. And at 5-9 cents, it is currently posing severe competition to energy sources like coal and natural gas (5-10 cents) and nuclear (11 cents). But by 2025, the price of solar is expected to fall to between 3.8 and 6.2 cents per kilowatt-hour (Euro), making it the least expensive power source by any measure. By 2050, solar energy for the European market is expected to fall even further, hitting levels between 1.8 and 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour — or 1/4 to 1/2 the cost of fossil and nuclear power sources.

These predictions are for a combined market taking into account the far less sunny European continent. In regions where solar energy is more abundant, the report notes that prices will fall to less than 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s 2 cents (US) for solar in places like Arizona and the Middle East come 2050.

IEA Shows Solar Ready For Battle Against Carbon-Emitting Industry

Already, solar energy adoption is beginning a rapid surge. As of this year, it is expected that 52 gigawatts of solar capacity will be built. But as prices keep falling this rate of build-out could easily double, then double again. By 2025, the IEA expects that solar PV alone could be installing 200 or more gigawatts each year. And by 2050 IEA expects combined solar PV and Solar Thermal Plants (STE) to exceed 30 percent of global energy production, becoming the world’s largest single power source.

Considering the severe challenges posed to the global climate system, to species, and to human civilizations by rampant carbon emissions now in excess of 11 gigatons each year (nearly 50 gigatons CO2e each year), the new and increased availability of solar energy couldn’t come soon enough. We now have both an undeniable imperative to prevent future harm coupled with increasingly powerful tools for bringing down world fossil fuel use and an egregious dumping of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. But we must implement these tools — wind, solar, EVs, efficiency, biomass, geothermal, biogas, tidal and others — as swiftly as possible if we are to have much hope for avoiding the worst impacts of human-caused climate change.

For the first half of 2014, a total of 56% percent of newly installed electricity generation capacity within the US came from wind and solar energy sources. In total, that’s more than 3,300 gigawatts of new power from non carbon emitting energy generation for the first six months of 2014 alone.

Solar energy, in particular, saw a major increase from 2013 — jumping 47% in new installed capacity over the same period last year. In total, the US now boasts more than 15 gigawatts of solar energy generation capacity — racing to catch up to US wind generating capacity that now stands at nearly 62 gigawatts.

A majority of new solar power generation came from utility-based projects. But strong new additions in residential solar power also buoyed total additions. The massive leap in new solar capacity was spurred by rapidly falling panel prices combined with much more robust avenues for those seeking to install solar — at the individual, agency, and utility scale. Municipal and institutional solar power generation also saw a substantial leap with government buildings, libraries, schools and churches taking the solar plunge.

Wind showed a substantial recovery from the first half of 2013, which only saw 2 megawatts of new wind after conservatives in Congress spear-headed an assault on the renewable energy production tax credit in an attempt to stymie new alternative energy sources. The blood-letting pushed wind off a track in which it was gaining between 5-10 gigawatts of new power generation annually during 2008 to 2012. Due to falling wind prices and rising gas and coal prices, however, wind appears to be staging a comeback to previous rates of adoption.

Overall, it’s an excellent start to a year that will almost certainly see more major new alternative energy resource additions.

Natural Gas — A Bridge to More Carbon Emissions

As for the bad news, 40% of the new generation capacity came from natural gas…

Natural gas has been promoted as a ‘bridge to clean energy.’ But the fact that each new natural gas plant installation extends the life-time of US carbon emissions is a black eye on this green-washed claim.

It’s true that natural gas emits less carbon when burned than coal. But the ground-water endangering fracking process also leaks a portion of the fracked gas into the atmosphere as methane. And methane is 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 20 year time-frame. Adding in the effect of methane leakage makes fracked natural gas as bad or nearly as bad as coal when taking into account the total industrial cycle heat forcing.

In addition, as noted above, continuing to construct natural gas plants now locks the US into an economic commitment to keep burning natural gas far into the future. In this way, on this path, our economy will continue to emit large volumes of carbon well past mid century. And given an immediately imminent and dangerous hothouse warming crisis, we simply can’t afford to keep emitting for so long.

In essence, we should be pushing to have all new energy capacity come from renewables even as we work to shut down existing carbon-fired power plants as rapidly as possible. And the already existing carbon-based infrastructure is massive — composing nearly 430 gigawatts of generating capacity for natural gas and 304 gigawatts for coal. We should be looking at ways to rapidly reduce this massive, carbon-emitting monstrosity. Not continue to add more to it.

Some of our more rational government officials have paid lip-service to the notion that the US should take a leading role on climate change. And this is a very valuable sentiment. However, real leadership does not involve adding new fossil fuel capacity or seeking new fossil fuel resources. True climate leadership is based in rapidly phasing out the burning of fossil fuels entirely, not locking them in for decades of continued use.

Unfortunately, such, unattached-to-reality, fossil fuel boosting by former industry professionals turned politician isn’t new. For these wayward ministers had missed recent developments in nearby Denmark providing a real long-term solution to both high energy prices and dependence on foreign suppliers, and all without the added hassle of threatening Europe’s water supplies or pushing the world one step closer to climate change game over.

Cheaper Than Other Forms of Energy

(GE wind turbine with battery backup in the turbine housing stores power for times of peak demand or when the wind is not blowing. Image source: Smart Planet.)

Rasmus Petersen, Danish Minister for Energy, Climate and Buildings was far more sanguine than a number of his wayward peers regarding renewable’s prospects:

“Wind power today is cheaper than other forms of energy, not least because of a big commitment and professionalism in the field. This is true both for researchers, companies and politicians.”

“We need a long-term and stable energy policy to ensure that renewable energy, both today and in the future is the obvious choice.”

Not included in Rasmus’ statement is the amount of monetary damage and loss of life that would inevitably be prevented by shifting the energy base to renewables and away from climatologically harmful fossil fuels. Damage to crops, damage from extreme weather, loss of coastal infrastructure, loss of fisheries, loss of whole ecologies, and increasing risks of a runaway global warming feedback in the Arctic are all reduced or prevented under such a shift. Though there is currently no price mechanism to add these monumental costs inherent to fossil fuel use to the current energy marketplace, the effects are ongoing and born by all of broader society.

It’s a kind of tax fossil fuel use foists on us all. A tax that includes potential loss of life as an ultimate levy. And with each passing year, the pain and harm from that wreckage-inducing tax increases.

In addition to broadly preventing such harms, an ever-increasing energy independence comes with a majority reliance on renewables as base energy.

EU Still Pushing for Renewables Expansion

Despite the rather loud voices of a couple of fossil fuel cheerleaders, the EU is pressing hard for increasing renewable energy generation. In total, the EU commission is now recommending that member states, on aggregate, set a 30 percent renewable energy production target and a 40% emissions reduction goal. This would more than double the 14.1 % renewable energy use achieved throughout the EU during 2012 and rising through 2014.

Under the current situation of amplifying damages caused by human-induced climate change, such policies provide a means of escape from escalating harm and of a prevention of the worst effects of warming-related climate and biosphere shocks. Governments around the world should take a good, hard look at such policies going forward as the economic excuses for perpetrating such harm by continuing fossil fuel exploitation, given the availability of 5 cent per kilowatt wind energy, grow quite thin indeed.

Last year, Republicans fought tooth and nail to block and delay the only federal funding program for wind energy — the Production Tax Credit. Their energy brinksmanship and political hostage taking forced a delay of a critical renewable energy investment decision until the last minute even as US wind capacity surged to 60 gigawatts and is attributed to increasing US economic growth by .25% in the 4th quarter while adding over 80,000 new jobs. This cynical political action, on the part of republicans and other opponents to renewable energy, resulted in an unconscionable stalling of new installations in early 2013 even as extreme weather and climate change continued to batter countries around the globe.

By comparison, US fossil fuel companies still enjoyed billions of dollars in subsidy, tax incentive, land use donations, and direct investment support from the federal government, risk free. To this point, it is worth considering the following info-graphic provided by the Environmental Law Institute:

They were the true beneficiaries of a government funded welfare system for energy sources, that year after year, continue to worsen our weather and climate — resulting in escalating physical and financial harm in the US and around the globe.

But even as new wind installations lag due to a toxic brew of investment uncertainty conjured up by republicans, new alternative energy technology continues to undercut prospects for long-term fossil fuel market dominance. In particular, a new wind turbine, this one produced by GE, breaks a number of key market barriers to wind energy adoption in both the US and around the world.

These turbines include two revolutionary advancements that put it toe-to-toe with traditional fossil fuel and nuclear generation sources in both capability and cost. First, the new turbines achieve a staggering 20-24% efficiency gain. This puts prices for these turbines at less than coal for new generation construction.

Other alternative energy systems have recently made similar gains, with solar and wind plants increasingly available that provide energy at, near, or lower than the cost of new coal. But the crowning blow of this new system to fossil fuel dominance lies not just in its staggering efficiency gains. The system also includes distributed storage.

Each turbine is equipped with a battery system that stores excess energy generated during times when the wind is blowing. This new capacity levelizes transmission to the grid during times of high energy production. It also enables the wind turbine to store the excess energy for later use. As a result, the capacity factor of an individual turbine jumps from around 30% to 54%. It also allows wind producers with the new turbine to directly compete with fossil fuel based energy sources in the highly lucrative frequency regulation business.

Fossil fuel cheerleaders have often derided the intermittency and lack of storage potential in renewable energy sources, claiming this was an impenetrable barrier to broader adoption. Now, these new turbines render that argument mostly moot. Higher net capacity factor for advanced wind and lower costs than traditional fuels results in an increasingly serious market challenge to dirty energy sources. Now, if we can just get a few friends in the US government to provide the funding these systems merit, then we might begin to make some serious gains in both net carbon emissions and a more permanent US energy independence.

As noted above, republicans are doing their best to block such critical advancements. And, it seems, they and their fossil fuel allies are seriously threatened by continuously advancing renewable energy technology. As of June, republicans and their oil company backers pushed to de-fund the US ARPA-E renewable energy research program providing critical funding for advancements such as the one produced by GE. Apparently, republicans are bound and determined to prove their theory of dysfunctional government by creating the level of dysfunction they so often criticize while at the same time support fuels that ruin humanity’s future prospects.

Back in the early 2000s, Portugal decided to make a major change to its energy structure. It invested heavily in building wind, hydro, solar and vehicle to grid infrastructure. The government created a corporation that bought out the power infrastructure and invested money in creating a smart grid. By 2010, 45% of all of Portugal’s energy came from renewables. And, for the first time, Portugal ran 70% of its economy on entirely renewable energy during the first quarter of this year (the vast majority of which was provided by wind and hydro power).

Portugal has produced a stunning achievement. It has increased renewable energy capacity even as it heightened efficiency and constructed a large network of electric vehicle charging stations. Once mostly reliant on fossil fuel imports, Portugal now exports electricity — 6% of that produced so far this year. These innovations are providing Portugal with key economic advantages during what has been a very difficult time for the nation. These advantages will help it continue to trim its trade deficit and keep more of its own money in-country, reducing reliance on debt and fiat inflationary tools.

Many agencies and think tanks have said that such a level of renewable energy adoption is not possible. But Portugal, a small and economically challenged European country, has done it all in just one decade. With its smart grid and network of electric vehicle charging stations, Portugal is now able to continue to increase its renewable energy capacity on up to 100% — a goal that all nations should aspire to.

Portugal provides a good example of how economies can rapidly switch to renewable energy. Such switches will be entirely necessary as the next few decades proceed and the shocks of human-caused climate change intensify.

Science has provided more than enough evidence to show that burning fossil fuels is an increasingly dangerous activity. Recent reports reveal that we are 565 gigatons of fossil fuel carbon away from crossing the dangerous climate tipping point of 2 degrees warming. Burning all current, proven, fossil fuels would result in dramatically more carbon entering the atmosphere. Five times the number needed to keep the very worst climate impacts in check: 2,795 gigatons.

But the oil, gas and coal companies keep seeking ways to expand that, already dangerously over-sized, base of fossil fuels resources. They tap expensive and dirty energy like the tar sands. They break the ground via fracking to bring more high-carbon oil and gas to the surface. They attempt to make economical the exploitation of billions of tons of methane hydrates. Pushing endlessly to exploit more, more, more.

As this mad effort to continue burning fossil fuels indefinitely into the future expands, a political war is waged to suppress any alternative energy source. Republican political lackeys to the oil, gas, and coal giants, at every turn, attempt to limit, reduce, or deny the development of non-carbon or low carbon energy. They fight to keep companies from paying the costs for externalizing the damage caused by fossil fuel extraction and the resulting carbon emission. They fight any limit to carbon exploitation — be it a carbon tax or a cap and trade policy.

Perhaps worst of all, is the ongoing effort by oil, gas and coal companies to deny that carbon emission causes any harm whatsoever. Efforts that have included attacks on scientists who have raised the warning of an increasingly dangerous climate change. The mad logic behind these attacks is simple. The fossil fuel companies obviously care nothing for humanity’s future. Instead, they care only for their immediate profits.

Exploiting all current fossil fuel reserves is enough to raise world temperatures 6 degrees Celsius or more by the end of this century. Amplifying feedbacks from the environment will push that temperature increase to 12 degrees Celsius by 2300. There is a high likelihood that a 6 degree Celsius temperature increase will do in my grandchildren. And 12 degrees Celsius removes the possibility of a habitable world.

2,795 gigatons of carbon locked in current reserves, while enough to push Earth out of the habitable zone, isn’t all the potential carbon locked in unconventional reserves of fossil fuel around the world. In fact, as much as 10,000 gigatons of carbon reside in unproven, but possible reserves. Even worse, at the current rate of burning we pass the ‘safe’ 565 gigaton threshold sometime around 2028. Unfortunately, carbon emissions aren’t level. They are increasing.

All these factors — the huge and increasing rate of burning, the amount of carbon currently on the books of the world’s fossil companies, the comparatively small amount we can still burn to maintain reasonable hope for a safe climate, and the massive volume of potential fuels that could be exploited — represent a terrible crisis. Yet every policy, every media effort, every campaign by the fossil fuel giants pushes us ever more rapidly into trouble.

They have us on an unconscionable, amoral path toward certain and ever-increasing harm.

Exploitation, Slavery, And Profit-driven Monstrosities

A blogger recently described a conversation he had with an oil executive. In this conversation, the oil executive claimed that if we didn’t have oil we would instead have slavery.

It’s worth taking a few moments to let this concept sink in. It’s also worth considering what it reveals about the person from which it came.

Slavery is, perhaps, the greatest injustice humankind has ever inflicted upon itself. It takes many forms from serfdom to outright trading of human beings for profit. Many of the most advanced civilizations have existed and boasted strong economies without the exploitation of human beings as slaves. And the notion that slavery doesn’t exist today because of oil, gas and coal is equally asinine. Human rights groups have increasingly warned of a growing trade in human beings since the 1990s. And we have also witnessed a ‘soft’ form of slavery in the exploitation of very low wage workers forced to live in shanty towns by mega-corporations around the globe.

Slavery isn’t something that strengthens economies. Conversely, it weakens them. In the 1860s US, the North boasted a highly developed economic system primarily devoid of slave labor. Meanwhile, the south was mostly a poorly developed slave-labor based agrarian economy designed to support the affluence of a tiny number of land-owner elite. The North won the war, largely due to its highly developed economy. The south lost, not because of battlefield failures, but because of an inability to match the North’s superior logistics, innovation, and industry. And though northern industry may have been fueled, in part, by coal, current forms of alternative energy are far more powerful and efficient than US coal and wood burning in the 1860s.

The notion that slavery would be necessary in the absence of oil, gas, and coal is one that comes from a mind that elevates the concept of exploitation and denies the notion of sustainability. In both slavery and fossil fuel use exploitation is a critical component. Extracting fossil fuels exploits the Earth’s resources. Burning fossil fuel externalizes damage by exploiting the Earth’s atmosphere and, in doing so, exploits the prospects of future generations. And slavery is a simple and extreme form of exploiting human beings. But exploitation isn’t necessary for prosperity or economic development. Instead, it can often ruin both.

What exploitation does do very well is maximize profits while relying less on effort or innovation. And this is where the hard truth comes in. Exploitation all too often serves to fuel the advancement and acquisition requirements of greedy, narcissistic individuals who lack the capacity to see beyond the confines their own tiny orbits or to gain much sense of the harm they may be causing.

Finally, oil, gas, and coal executives too often pretend that the energy sources they supply are the only viable forms available. In 2013, a time of expanding access to renewable forms of energy, this notion is as wretched and antiquated as the 19th century assertion that slavery was necessary for American prosperity.

Alternatives, Equality Necessary For Human Advancement

If the world can run on 100 dollar per barrel oil, then the world can certainly run on far less expensive sources of wind, solar and biofuels. Contrary to what some doomers say, these new sources could very well result in greater economic development and prosperity than the fossil sources of energy that tend to cause so much costly external harm. Further, the diffuse nature of these energy sources leads to more equal economic structures. Profits concentrate less and tend to be more spread out. In such cases, history shows that prosperity tends to spring up in a virtuous self-sustaining cycle.

This truth has already born out in many of the most advanced corporations and economies around the globe. Apple runs on 75% renewable energy. Ironically, Apple also often competes with oil companies for highest profits. But Apple’s methods of profit generation — innovation and diligence — contrasts with the oil company model of exploitation and political manipulation. One company represents a promising future, the others a catastrophe. Germany powers itself on 25% renewable energy. Denmark has reached over 30%. California, the largest economy in the United States, generates 33% of its electricity from renewables. Even China seems to understand the stakes. After years of suffering from water scarcity due to coal pollution, in 2012 China produced more new energy capacity from wind than it did from fossil fuels.

This ongoing and growing trend is not slavery, it is an opportunity for liberation.

The Time For Abolition is Now

With renewable energy achieving economic viability at the same time fossil fuels threaten to wreck the climate, now is the time for a strong movement to abolish the use of fossil fuels and to hasten transition to sustainable energy. The small carbon budget remaining to us is cause for urgency and the continued expansion of dangerous fossil fuel use is reason enough to act now.

In the 18th and 19th centuries brave abolitionists stood against those still supporting slavery. They paved the way to freedom and dignity for millions and they set in place the conditions for which a nation would be liberated from its own terrible legacy. In this day, we need a new form of abolitionist. One brave enough to stand against the might of the fossil fuel giants and to fight for a future in which the hope of a livable world remains. A world that husbands the prosperity of future generations rather than sacrificing them on the alter of fossil fuel company profits.

The time for abolition of these dirty, dangerous and depleting fuels is now.

What’s more dangerous than a Fukushima reactor meltdown? The Japanese quest to exploit methane hydrates.

Ever since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant dangerously and spectacularly melted down in 2011, Japan has been on a quest to find reliable energy sources that safely replace nuclear power. One of these prospective sources is methane hydrates. Yet, in attempting to transition from nuclear energy to methane hydrate, Japan is simply trading one dangerous and unpredictable energy resource for another.

Methane hydrates are a form of methane mixed with frozen water that rest in vast deposits on the sea bed. It is thought that these deposits are double the current estimate for all other forms of fossil fuels. And since scientists estimate two thirds of currently available fossil fuels need to stay in the ground to keep global warming below dangerous levels (levels that Hurricane Sandy victims would argue are dangerous now), the addition of methane hydrates to that mix would almost certainly worsen an already dark global warming picture.

Yet, just this week, Japan announced that it had successfully extracted methane hydrates from the sea floor for the first time and that it intends to begin commercial extraction of this carbon intensive energy source within 5 years.

A High Cost, Unstable Fuel For Desperate Times

The costs of methane hydrate extraction are still very high. So high, in fact, that serious doubts remain that the supply can be extracted commercially.

Yet Japanese government seems hell bent to exploit the resource, ignoring both costs and risks. Japan’s options were limited after Fukyshima and it appears desperate to access any new resource, no matter how costly or volatile.

According to reports from the Financial Times, Ryo Minami, director of the oil and gas division of Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources, compared the effort to exploit methane hydrate to America’s fracking of shale gas. “Ten years ago, everybody knew there was shale gas in the ground, but to extract it was too costly. Yet now it’s commercialised,” he said.

It is true that the US exploited shale gas at serious cost and risk to water supplies and increased methane leaks. It is also true that a number of countries which consider shale gas too dangerous a resource have banned it. France, for example, which relies heavily on nuclear power won’t touch shale gas. The reason includes a serious risk of climate change that makes the disaster resulting from Fukushima seem minor by comparison.

One wonders why Japan isn’t instead pushing for greater adoption of renewable energy supplies instead of seeking to exploit ever more dangerous and expensive reserves of fossil fuel. Tapping yet another unconventional fossil fuel resource that would make dealing with human caused global warming all the more difficult.

So far, 880 gigatons of carbon have been released into the atmosphere. Together, methane hydrates and all the remaining fossil fuels represent a potential to dump 15,000 gigatons more carbon into an already stressed environment. Such an exploitation would likely take more than a century to complete. However, once finished, the extraction and burning of all that fossil fuel would result in world CO2 levels soaring to over 2000 ppm. Such levels would almost certainly set off runaway global warming.

Even worse, methane hydrates are very volatile, subject to explosive destabilization. So mining the resource from the sea-bed would likely result in a substantial portion being released as methane as part of the extraction process. Such methane releases could strip oxygen from the local marine environment. In large releases, methane would bubble up into the atmosphere adding yet another greenhouse gas to the global warming problem.

Exploitation of Methane Hydrates Unsustainable

Considering greenhouse gas emissions need to begin declining now to preserve a livable climate for human civilizations, Japan’s plans to exploit methane hydrates are unwise even in the best of cases. Japan’s significant economy would be better off investing in alternatives such as wind and solar energy as well as building on current battery-based vehicle fleets to push PHEVs and EVs for the Japanese market.

Methane hydrates represent an expensive climate dead end for Japan and the global economy. Hopefully, Japan will reconsider before the world is shackled to yet another costly and dangerous unconventional fossil fuel resource.

If you listened to the right wing media, you’d think that wind and solar energy had died a loud and ignominious death. Not true according to the latest reports from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. New installation reports show that rumor of the death of wind and solar energy is simply misinformation likely spread by journals and news sources aligned with oil, coal, and gas special interest groups which seek to retain energy market dominance.

Total US wind and solar installations through September of 2012 were 5 gigawatts. In contrast, total installed new natural gas capacity was 4.5 gigawatts and total new installed coal capacity was 2.2 gigawatts. This is very good news and shows enormous progress on both the climate and energy front for the US. However, for the US to begin to make an appreciable dent in carbon emissions, new wind and solar installations will have to continue to pick up. In total more than 8 times the current installed capacity for wind and solar are needed within the next 10-20 years. So the pace of new installation will also have to increase.

(Teddy Roosevelt established America’s first Progressive Party. Called the Bull Moose Party, it ran on a platform of halting the abuses of industry, preserving natural resources, advancing civilization, and developing government structures that advanced the public good. President Roosevelt, shown above, riding a moose.)

In dealing with the combined crisis of resource depletion and climate change, those seeking solutions are confronted at every turn with entrenched special interests whose profit and power comes from a perpetuation of a harmful status quo. They delay responses to human caused global warming. They confuse the issue by meddling with the language and definitions surrounding the topics of energy and climate. They actively work to attack alternatives to fossil fuel dependence, waging public relations and political campaigns against the supports for wind, solar, electric vehicles and increases in energy efficiency. And they work to secure special deals and subsidies to a fossil fuel industry whose goal is complete market dominance.

When we look at the money, power, and degree of political influence held by these organizations, it can, indeed, seem a massive task to rip the fingers of these new robber barons from a strangle-hold on our future. But try we must. If we do not, the future steadily grows worse. As the decades pass, the twin crises of resource depletion and climate change ratchet down on us with increasing force. At some point, we lose the ability to maintain the functioning of a world civilization and we fragment into an every-increasing number of bitter and bickering tribes, harboring only a fading memory of a golden age that has slipped beyond our reach.

These may seem like far-reaching issues. But they are real and ongoing today. And we, even now, consciously or unconsciously, are making decisions that will drastically affect the path of our lives, our children’s lives, and the lives of all generations that follow. For we have come to a turning point in our age and we must decide whether to act responsibly or to allow the hope of civilization to perish.

There are many who are already engaged in an action to shore up our civilization, our world, our vital natural resources, and the technologies, practices and behaviors that will enable sustainability. These persons come from a variety of organizations and values systems. But the one virtue they hold in common is that they know sustainability is a necessary value of a healthy civilization. Some of these organizations include:

In addition, we have the faculty of human science that is constantly increasing our understanding of our universe and our world. All these groups, both preservers and explorers, provide an invaluable service. They guard the gates to climate change. They hold back the worst impacts of fossil fuel special interests. They provide us with a clearer and clearer understanding of the crisis we are facing.

Together, they have formed a kind of holding action reigning in the world-wide excesses of industry. But now, a holding action is no longer what is required. For even as the climate and resource depleting crises worsen, the fossil fuel industries are again engaged in a massive campaign for dominance of political, media, and financial power sources. Against this assault, a holding action cannot stand. The gate keepers instead, must unite and go on the offensive.

Returning to the issue of fossil fuel industry abuses, it is important to note that they have demonstrated, through both their action and inaction, their complete lack of responsibility on the issues of human caused global warming and resource depletion. They have waged a public relations and political war against any and all alternatives to dirty, dangerous and depleting fuels. They have blatantly refused to do anything more than what amounts to token investment in alternative energy sources. And many of them have funded efforts to demonize both scientists and those providing solutions to the combined crisis of global warming and resource depletion.

Given this immense failure, it is sadly necessary to declare a public war against these special interests and to use all peaceful means available to remove their stature as energy leaders. Over the past few decades, they have failed to make provision for the future in almost every way while employing every means to cynically shore up their own power. They have caused harm where there was no harm before. And they have placed the future of human civil society in dire peril. For these reasons, we should raise a public call that all organizations and individuals with means rally to this cause and that they operate together for a common purpose — removal of these special interests from such high power and economic prominence.

In pursuit of these goals, the following are submitted as an outline for a plan of action:

1. Provide an in-depth, wide-ranging, and ongoing communication describing industry political, economic, and environmental abuses to the public. This PR campaign would need to hit all levels of media and government. Coordination of the various environmental, sustainability, and public service networks would be key to successfully managing this kind of campaign.

2. Initiate a wide-ranging direct action against new oil, gas, and coal industry projects. A good model for this is the action against the Keystone XL pipeline. However, the actions would have to be more broad-based and diverse. Similar to what is being waged against the coal industry now, but on a broader level.

3. Direct political action and lobbying. An increase in lobbying activity explaining to our government why these actions are being undertaken and providing a list of concessions necessary from industry in order for actions to cease (requirements for action cease fire).

4. Related to the above… Lines in the sand drawn on overall carbon emissions reduction per year, on incentives for renewables (at least four times the levels of direct and indirect incentives to oil, gas, and coal or 2% of public spending), and on government public communication in major media outlets providing education on the existence and risks of global warming and resource depletion.

5. Publicly outing major oil company stock holders and industry leaders who do not agree to the terms above.

6. Organizing a campaign to promote and protect the alternatives. Direct support for GM’s Volt. Direct support for wind energy. Direct support for solar energy. Direct support for smart grids and energy storage systems. Direct support for sustainability in agriculture and for sustainable communities. Direct support for vegan and vegetarian alternatives in major food outlets and other progressive measures. This is not just word of mouth, it is coordination with the new industries in order to give them a PR advantage. In addition, identifying specific areas where coal, oil, and gas can be directly replaced by alternatives.

7. Schools, schools, schools. Coordinate non-profits to develop a fund to put solar panels on public schools. Campaign in a ‘save our schools, save our world’ program that raises both the importance of schools and the need for alternative energy. Enlist teachers, students, librarians. Develop renewable energy and global warming laboratories at schools through their science and technology programs. Form local fundraisers to collect money for school solar panels and education programs. Focus on the schools in Texas, Oklahoma, California, North Dakota, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Virginia and Florida the most. These are either key energy regions, areas that will be hardest hit by climate change or both.

8. Change the language to reflect the true nature of the problems facing us. Global warming is an appropriate descriptor. Denier is more apt than skeptic. Paint those who support fossil fuel industries and who deny global warming as irresponsible, short sighted, and harmful to society. If they are going to act in an amoral fashion. Shame, shame, shame them.

9. Focus on the media. Hold the media accountable for irresponsibility in its portrayal of energy and climate issues. Expand the scope of agencies like Media Matters to include the entire media on issues like global warming, climate change, and alternative energy. As an example, I see about one hit piece on the Chevy Volt at least every other day. These articles, the people who write them, and the news sources they come from should be called out, fact checked, and exposed for publishing inaccurate and harmful information.

10. Direct action to protest public officials funded by the oil, gas, and coal industry. Identify political officials funded by oil, gas, and coal. Publicly post information about them on ‘watch dog’ sites on the internet. Pick visible and prominent figures from this group and organize strategic protests against them aimed to call attention to their pandering to oil, gas and coal special interests. Identify oil, gas, and coal funding sources, organizations hired to do their political dirty work etc.

11. Provide an agency designed to protect the scientists. Provide legal assistance to scientists assaulted by fossil fuel special interests. Provide public advocacy on behalf of these scientists. Put people to work tracking every death threat, every instance of public besmirchment, every fallacious litigation against these scientists, every invasion and violation of their human and Constitutional rights. Track groups that have targeted scientists. Identify individuals. Target these groups and individuals with both civil and criminal prosecution.

12. Protect our future. On every Earth Day, each year, to symbolically communicate our resolve to protect our future, we could organize groups of concerned individuals to form ‘linked arm rings’ around the institutions, natural resources, community, state and national bodies and infrastructure that play a key role in preserving out future. We could encircle GISS, NASA, NOAA offices, Solar panel facilities, windmills, a neighborhood Chevy Volt, parts of our national parks. Our bicycles. Our local farms. We could take a picture and post them to all forms of media on the net under the header “Earth Day, Protect our Future, the things, people, creatures, and places we must protect to ensure a good future.” The idea is to create a ritual action, repeated yearly, that cements in people’s minds the importance of preserving the future. Have prominent individuals make speeches. Encourage people to write poems or publish blogs on this subject. Encourage only certain foods (local, vegan etc) to be eaten on the week leading up to this day. The idea is to cement a cultural value, to provide a symbolic action, and to create a basis for a new form of moral good. And, last of all, to force the world to recognize it.

13. The public elevation and celebration of climate and alternative energy luminaries like James Hansen, Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, Al Gore, and others who are eloquent, brave, or who have maintained the strength of character to directly confront our problems. We should also elevate and celebrate those who have come before — persons like Rachael Carson and John Muir or presidents like Teddy Roosevelt. Even as we look to the future we should establish precedent based on the morality, prominence, resonance, and moral bravery of our leaders. Many have sought to demonize these individuals. We should, therefore, fight to defend them.

For events to have degenerated to the level of direct conflict, rather than that of cooperation, is truly tragic. However, responsible people can no longer sit by or offer only token and fragmented resistance to fossil fuel special interests. The damage caused to both climate and economies is now widely apparent and still these powerful organizations work to delay action, to harm the alternatives, and to attack scientists.

The degree of self-serving insanity coming from this group has risen to the level of a narcissistic irrationality. If we were on a sinking ship they would be screaming ‘don’t man the pumps!’ for fear of wetting their fragile and overly decorous business attire. It’s high time we got them off the deck, away from the captain, and safely locked in the brig, all while the rest of us managed this emergency and fought to save the vessel from sinking.

It seems that every year or so a matter of national urgency comes up for debate in Congress: a rather inexpensive incentive for the critical wind industry called the production tax credit. This incentive aids an industry that creates tens of thousands of US jobs even as it helps to mitigate the ongoing climate change crisis currently impacting the United States.

In all, the production tax credit cost the US government $1.6 billion last year. It paid that money back tenfold in new jobs created and in carbon emissions prevented. In short, this small sum is helping to solve the climate change crisis that this year may cost America as much as $100 billion from combined drought and other extreme weather damages even as it helps to solve our economic crisis.

Often, wind opponents argue that if wind must receive subsidies to expand, then it is not economically viable. But considering the fact that all major energy sources receive a degree of subsidies and incentives, this argument is, in itself, nonsensical.

Oil, for example, is a major beneficiary of US subsidies. And, for years, it has operated under the illusion of being an ‘economic energy source.’ Now, a decade of high prices has made a mockery of this claim. And over the same period, more than $40 billion has been spent in subsidies and incentives for this dirty, dangerous, and depleting oil. But high oil prices have managed to ensure one thing: that oil companies themselves end up making record profits. In this case, shoveling money at already highly profitable oil is like shoveling more fuel onto a climate change fire. Onto a depleting energy source that is bound to cost more and more as the years wear on. In essence, we are spending taxpayer money to damage our economy while simultaneously enriching the companies that do so.

Republicans in Congress, who seem determined to kill this tax credit for the wind industry should think on the job losses, and the further damage to America via the vehicle of climate change, such a repeal would cause. They should think on their often hollow claims of reverence to the spirit of freedom. One they are allowing the oil barons to crush through the force of political and market dominance. These same republicans have often given lip-service to job creation. Now they have a chance to allow an actual job creation measure to pass. Given past performance, one is not too hopeful this will occur. But should they block the production tax credit, they should pay for their failure. For they would harm America’s energy security, her ability to create jobs, and the climate security which is vital to maintaining her Agricultural prominence.